My favorite Cyber Monday deals

Pickings were not as great as I'd hoped, but here are a few Cyber Monday deals that piqued my interest.

I’m a big online shopper. In fact, since the advent of Amazon, I find it hard to find much reason to go into any physical store at all. I find it annoying. And confusing. There is no search box at the entrance to a Best Buy.

That’s why Cyber Monday is typically a day I get pretty excited about. Not because I think I’ll actually find anything I’ve been desperately needing to buy for significantly cheaper, but because it gives me an excuse to buy things I may not have considered buying before just because it’s a little bit discounted. I know there’s no real logic to that, but that’s just how it is.

With that in mind, I spent quite a lot of time this morning scrolling through lists of Cyber Monday deals, trying to figure out how to get rid of the virtual change burning a virtual hole in my virtual pocket.

Pickings were not as awesome as I had hoped, but a few deals did pique my interest.

The first is the now infamous Nest Thermostat, discounted a solid 20 percent on Amazon. Designed by members of a team who worked on Apple’s iPod, the Nest is a sleek looking digital thermostat which can actually “learn” its owners’ schedule and then continue to regulate temperature to suit the user’s preferences and patterns.

By regulating temperature and adjusting itself to switch on or off when needed, the Nest not only saves people money on their electricity bills, but also gives people more control over how they control their energy costs. And at $198, it’s a steal.

Amazon is also offering a pretty sweet deal on its older model Kindle Fire tablet today. Using the coupon code “FIREDEAL” you can take an extra $30 off the normal price of $160, making it a $130, which makes it well worth it in my opinion (I own one…. Full disclosure.)

Deal News has a rather extensive list of discounted laptops today, so if you’re in the market for a new ultraportable machine that will run you less than $500, you definitely want to check out this page here.